The Black Tower

by P. D. James

  Father Baddeley had seemed to ponder this question, briefly but seriously as if it were new to him and unexpectedly interesting.

  “Oh, yes, I think so. I think so. Otherwise it would lose its point.”

  The young Dalgliesh, to whom the point was already lost beyond ken, had wandered away to pursue his own more interesting and immediate concerns. The spiritual life. It was a phrase he had often heard on the lips of his father’s more ultra mundane parishioners although never on the Canon’s own. He had occasionally tried to visualize this mysterious other existence. Was it lived at the same time as the ordinary regulated life of getting up, meal times, school, holidays; or was it an existence on some other plane to which he and the uninitiated had no access but into which Father Baddeley could retreat at will? Either way it had surely little to do with this careful recording of daily trivia.

  He picked up the last book and looked through it. Father Baddeley’s system had not been changed. It was all here, two days to the page, neatly ruled off. The times at which he had daily said morning prayer and evensong; where he had walked and how long it had taken; the monthly trip by bus into Dorchester; the weekly trip to Wareham; his hours spent helping at Toynton Grange; odd treats baldly recorded; the methodical account of how he had disposed of every hour of his working day year after unremarkable year, documented with the meticulousness of a book-keeper. “But this is the spiritual life; the ordinary things that one does from day to day.” Surely it couldn’t be as simple as that?

  But where was the current diary, the book for the third quarter of 1974? It had been Father Baddeley’s habit to keep old copies of his diary covering the last three years. There should have been fifteen books here; there were only fourteen. The diary stopped at the end of June 1974. Dalgliesh found himself searching almost feverishly through the desk drawers. The diary wasn’t there. But he did find something. Pushed beneath three receipted bills for coal, paraffin and electricity was a sheet of cheap rather thin paper with Toynton Grange printed inexpertly and lopsidedly at the top. Underneath someone had typed:

  “Why don’t you get out of the cottage you silly old hypocrite and let someone have it who would really be some use here? Don’t think we don’t know what you and Grace Willison get up to when you’re supposed to be hearing her confession. Don’t you wish you could really do it? And what about that choir boy? Don’t think we don’t know.”

  Dalgliesh’s first reaction was to be more irritated by the note’s silliness than angered by its malice. It was a childish piece of gratuitous spite but without even the dubious merit of verisimilitude. Poor old seventy-seven-year-old Father Baddeley, accused simultaneously of fornication, sodomy and impotence! Could any reasonable man have taken this puerile nonsense seriously enough even to be hurt by it? Dalgliesh had seen plenty of poison pen letters in his professional life. This was a comparatively mild effort; he could almost suppose that the writer’s heart hadn’t been in it. “Don’t you wish you could really do it?” Most poison pen writers could find a more graphic description of that implied activity. And the belated reference to the choir boy, no name, no date. That hadn’t been dredged from any real knowledge. Could Father Baddeley really have been concerned enough to have sent for a professional detective and one he hadn’t seen for nearly thirty years just to advise on or investigate this petty nastiness? Perhaps. This might not be the only letter. If the trouble were endemic at Toynton Grange, then it was more serious. A poison pen at work in a closed community could cause real trouble and distress, occasionally he or she could literally be a killer. If Father Baddeley suspected that others had received similar letters he might well have looked around for professional help. Or, and this was more interesting, had someone intended Dalgliesh to believe precisely that? Had the note been deliberately planted for him to find? It was odd, surely, that no one had discovered and destroyed it after Father Baddeley’s death. Someone from Toynton Grange must have looked through his papers. This was hardly a note one would leave for others to read.

  He folded it away in his wallet and began to wander around the cottage. Father Baddeley’s bedroom was much as he had expected. A mean window with a dingy cretonne curtain, a single bed still made-up with sheets and blankets but with the counterpane pulled taut over the single lumpy pillow; books lining two walls; a small bedside table with a shoddy lamp; a Bible; a cumbersome and gaudily decorated china ashtray bearing an advertisement for beer. Father Baddeley’s pipe still rested in its bowl and beside it Dalgliesh saw a half-used booklet of cardboard matches, the kind given away in restaurants and bars. This bore an advertisement for Ye Olde Tudor Barn near Wareham. One single used match was in the ashtray; it had been shredded down to the burnt-out tip. Dalgliesh smiled. So this small personal habit, too, had survived over thirty years. He could recall Father Baddeley’s small squirrel-like fingers delicately shredding the sliver of thin cardboard as if attempting to beat some previous personal record. Dalgliesh picked up the match and smiled; six segments. Father Baddeley had excelled himself.

  He wandered into the kitchen. It was small, ill-equipped, neat but not very clean. The small gas stove of old-fashioned design looked as if it would soon qualify for a folk museum. The sink under the window was of stone fitted on one side with a scarred and discoloured wooden draining board smelling of stale fat and sour soap. The faded cretonne curtains faintly patterned with overblown roses and daffodils unseasonably intertwined were pulled back to show an inland view of the far Purbeck hills. Clouds tenuous as smoke puffs were drifting and dissolving in the limitless blue sky and the sheep lay like white slugs on their distant pasture.

  He explored the pantry. Here at least was evidence that he was expected. Father Baddeley had indeed bought extra food and the tins were a dispiriting reminder of what for him had constituted an adequate diet. Pathetically, he had obviously provided for two, one of whom he confidently expected to have a larger appetite. There was one large tin and one small of many of the staple provisions: baked beans, tuna fish, Irish stew, spaghetti, rice pudding.

  Dalgliesh went back to the sitting-room. He was aware of weariness, that the journey had tired him more than he had expected. He saw by the heavy oak clock over the fireplace still ticking solidly on, that it was still not four o’clock, but his body protested that this had already been a long hard day. He craved tea. There had been a caddy of tea in the pantry but no milk. He wondered whether the gas was still on.

  It was then that he heard the footfall at the door, the clank of the latch. There was a woman’s figure framed against the afternoon light. He heard a gravelly deep but very feminine voice with a trace, no more, of an Irish accent.

  “For God’s sake! A human being and a male at that. What are you doing here?”

  She came into the room leaving the door open behind her and he saw her clearly. She was about thirty-five, he guessed, sturdy, long-legged, her mane of yellow hair, visibly darker at the roots, worn in a long sweep to her shoulders. Her eyes were full-lidded and narrow in the square face, her mouth wide. She was wearing brown ill-fitting slacks with a strap under the foot, dirty, grass-stained white plimsoles and a sleeveless white cotton top, low-necked, which showed a brown and mottled triangle of sunburn. She wore no brassiere and the full, heavy breasts swung loose under the thin cotton. Three wooden bangles clanked on her left forearm. The total impression was of a raffish but not unattractive sexuality, so strong that, although she wore no scent, she brought into the room her own female and individual smell.

  He said: “My name’s Adam Dalgliesh. I came here intending to visit Father Baddeley. It seems that it won’t now be possible.”

  “Well, that’s one way of putting it. You’re exactly eleven days late. Eleven days too late to see him and five days too late to bury him. Who are you, a chum? We didn’t know that he had any. But then, there were quite a number of things we didn’t know about our Reverend Michael. He was a secretive little man. He certainly kept you hidden.”

  “We hadn’t met except
briefly since I was a boy and I only wrote to tell him I was coming the day before he died.”

  “Adam. I like that. They call a lot of kids that nowadays. It’s getting trendy again. But you must have found it a bit of a drag when you were at school. Still, it suits you. I can’t think why. You aren’t exactly of the earth, earthy are you? I know about you now. You’ve come to collect the books.”

  “Have I?”

  “The ones Michael left you in his will. To Adam Dalgliesh, only son of the late Canon Alexander Dalgliesh, all my books to keep or dispose of as he sees fit. I remember it exactly because I thought the names were so unusual. You haven’t lost much time, have you? I’m surprised that the solicitors have even got round to writing to you. Bob Loder isn’t usually that efficient. But I shouldn’t get too excited if I were you. They never looked particularly valuable to me. A lot of dry old theological tomes. By the way, you weren’t expecting to be left any of his money were you? If so, I’ve got news for you.”

  “I didn’t know that Father Baddeley had any money.”

  “Nor did we. That was another of his little secrets. He left £19,000. Not a great fortune, but useful. He left it all to Wilfred for the benefit of Toynton Grange, and it came just in time from all I hear. Grace Willison is the only other legatee. She got that old bureau. At least she will get it when Wilfred bothers to have it moved.”

  She had settled down in the fireside chair, her hair thrown back against the headrest, both legs splayed wide. Dalgliesh pulled out one of the wheel-backed chairs and sat facing her.

  “Did you know Father Baddeley well?”

  “We all know each other well here, that’s half our trouble. Are you thinking of staying here?”

  “In the district perhaps for a day or two. But it doesn’t seem possible now to stay here …”

  “I don’t see why not if you want to. The place is empty, at least until Wilfred finds another victim—tenant, I should say. I shouldn’t think that he’d object. Besides you’ll have to sort out the books won’t you? Wilfred will want them out of the way before the next incumbent moves in.”

  “Wilfred Anstey owns the cottage then?”

  “He owns Toynton Grange and all the cottages except Julius Court’s. He’s further out on the headland, the only one with a sea view. Wilfred owns all the rest of the property and he owns us.”

  She looked at him appraisingly.

  “You haven’t any useful skills, have you? I mean you’re not a physiotherapist or a male nurse or a doctor, or even an accountant? Not that you look like one. Anyway, if you are I’d advise you to keep away before Wilfred decides that you’re too useful to let go.”

  “I don’t think that he’d find my particular skills of much use.”

  “Then I should stay on if it suits you. But I’d better put you in the picture. You might then change your mind.”

  Dalgliesh said:

  “Start with yourself. You haven’t told me who you are.”

  “Good God, nor have I! Sorry. I’m Maggie Hewson. My husband is resident medical officer at the Grange. At least, he lives with me in a cottage provided by Wilfred and appropriately named Charity Cottage, but he spends most of his time at Toynton Grange. With only five patients left you’d wonder what he finds to amuse him. Or would you? What do you suppose he finds to amuse him, Adam Dalgliesh?”

  “Did your husband attend Father Baddeley?”

  “Call him Michael, we all did except Grace Willison. Yes, Eric looked after him when he was alive and signed the death certificate when he died. He couldn’t have done that six months ago, but now that they’ve graciously restored him to the Medical Register he can actually put his name to a piece of paper to say that you’re properly and legally dead. God, what a bloody privilege.”

  She laughed, and fumbling in the pocket of her slacks produced a packet of cigarettes and lit one. She handed the packet to Dalgliesh. He shook his head. She shrugged her shoulders and blew a puff of smoke towards him.

  Dalgliesh asked:

  “What did Father Baddeley die of?”

  “His heart stopped beating. No, I’m not being facetious. He was old, his heart was tired and on 21st September it stopped. Acute myocardic infarction complicated by mild diabetes, if you want the medical jargon.”

  “Was he alone?”

  “I imagine so. He died at night, at least he was last seen alive by Grace Willison at 7.45 p.m. when he heard her confession. I suppose he died of boredom. No, I can see I shouldn’t have said that. Bad taste, Maggie. She says he seemed as usual, a bit tired of course, but then he’d only been discharged from hospital that morning. I came in at nine o’clock the next day to see if he wanted anything from Wareham—I was taking the eleven o’clock bus; Wilfred doesn’t allow private cars—and there he lay, dead.”

  “In bed?”

  “No, in that chair where you’re sitting now, slumped back with his mouth open and his eyes closed. He was wearing his cassock and a purple ribbon thing round his neck. All quite seemly. But very, very dead.”

  “So it was you who first found the body?”

  “Unless Millicent from next door came pussy-footing in earlier, didn’t like the look of him and tiptoed home again. She’s Wilfred’s widowed sister in case you’re interested. Actually, it’s rather odd that she didn’t come in, knowing that he was ill and alone.”

  “It must have been a shock for you.”

  “Not really. I was a nurse before I married. I’ve seen more dead bodies than I can remember. And he was very old. It’s the young ones—the kids particularly—who get you down. God, am I glad to be finished with all that messy business.”

  “Are you? You don’t work at Toynton Grange then?”

  She got up and moved over to the fireplace before replying. She blew a cloud of smoke against the looking glass over the mantelpiece then moved her face close to the glass as if studying her reflection.

  “No, not when I can avoid it. And by God, do I try to avoid it. You may as well know. I am the delinquent member of the community, the non-co-operator, the dropout, the heretic. I sow not, neither do I reap. I am impervious to the charms of dear Wilfred. I close my ears to the cries of the afflicted. I do not bend the knee at the shrine.”

  She turned towards him with a look half challenging, half speculative. Dalgliesh thought that the outburst had been less than spontaneous, the protest had been made before. It sounded like a ritual justification and he suspected that someone had helped her with the script. He said:

  “Tell me about Wilfred Anstey.”

  “Didn’t Michael warn you? No, I suppose he wouldn’t. Well, it’s an odd story but I’ll try to make it short. Wilfred’s great grandfather built Toynton Grange. His grandfather left it in trust jointly to Wilfred and his sister Millicent. Wilfred bought her out when he started the Home. Eight years ago Wilfred developed multiple sclerosis. It progressed very swiftly; within three months he was chairbound. Then he went on a pilgrimage to Lourdes and got himself cured. Apparently he made a bargain with God. You cure me and I’ll devote Toynton Grange and all my money to serving the disabled. God obliged, and now Wilfred’s busy fulfilling his part of the bargain. I suppose he’s afraid to back out of the agreement in case the disease returns. I don’t know that I blame him. I’d probably feel the same myself. We’re all superstitious at heart, particularly about disease.”

  “And is he tempted to back out?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. This place gives him a sensation of power. Surrounded by grateful patients, regarded as a half-superstitious object of veneration by the women, Dot Moxon—the matron so-called—fussing round him like an old hen. Wilfred’s happy enough.”

  Dalgliesh asked:

  “When exactly did the miracle happen?”

  “He claims, when they dipped him in the well. As he tells it, he experienced an initial shock of intense cold followed immediately by a tingling warmth which suffused his whole body, and a feeling of great happiness and peace. That’s exactly what I
get after my third whisky. If Wilfred can produce it in himself by bathing in ice cold germ-laden water, then all I can say is, he’s bloody lucky. When he got back to the hospice he stood on his legs for the first time in six months. Three weeks later he was skipping around like a young ram. He never bothered to return to St. Saviour’s hospital in London where he was treated, so that they could record the miraculous cure on his medical record. It would have been rather a joke if he had.”

  She paused as if about to say something further and then merely added:

  “Touching, isn’t it?”

  “It’s interesting. How does he find the money to fulfil his part of the bargain?”

  “The patients pay according to means and some of them are sent here under contractual arrangements by local authorities. And then, of course, he’s used his own capital. But things are getting pretty desperate, or so he claims. Father Baddeley’s legacy came just in time. And, of course, Wilfred gets the staff on the cheap. He doesn’t exactly pay Eric the rate for the job. Philby, the odd job man, is an ex-convict and probably otherwise unemployable; and the matron, Dot Moxon, wouldn’t exactly find it easy to get another job after that cruelty investigation at her last hospital. She must be grateful to Wilfred for taking her on. But then, we’re all terribly, terribly grateful to dear Wilfred.”

  Dalgliesh said:

  “I suppose I’d better go up to the Grange and introduce myself. You say there are only five patients left?”

  “You’re not supposed to refer to them as patients, although I don’t know what else Wilfred thinks you can call them. Inmates sounds too much like a prison although, God knows, it’s appropriate enough. But there are only five left. He’s not admitting from the waiting list until he’s made up his mind about the Home’s future. The Ridgewell Trust’s angling for it and Wilfred’s considering handing the whole place over to them, lock, stock and gratis. Actually, there were six patients a fortnight or so ago, but that was before Victor Holroyd threw himself over Toynton Head and smashed himself on the rocks.”